Executive orders seek closure of Department of Education and FEMA

But the Education order doesn't cut funding and can't override the department's structure set in law

President Trump has singled out the Department of Education (commonly abbreviated "ED”) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) among parts of the federal bureaucracy he wishes to eliminate. Republicans have called for eliminating ED almost as far back as its creation 1979.

The Trump Administration issued two executive orders (EOs) related to these agencies last week, but neither went as far as to abolish them because only Congress can abolish an agency it has created, which legislators do not seem inclined to do. The EO to shut ED directs the process to begin, but it’s unclear what if anything will be significantly changed by this EO, and challenges have already begun in court. The EO also targets “diversity, equity, and inclusion” and “gender ideology.”

Shuffling and shrinking the Department of Education

Trump’s March 20, 2025 executive order on closing ED directs the Secretary of Education to “return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.” But that’s “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law,” and what the law permits to be closed may not be very much.

ED has very limited "authority” over state and local education. It is not authorized to develop curricula, set state-level education standards, or determine requirements for student graduation. Much of what the department does is manage additional federal funds for state-run local schools pursuant to laws enacted even before the department itself was created in 1979. Those funds account for less than 10% of the total spent on elementary and secondary schools.

Originally a bureau inside the Department of the Interior, ED’s programs shifted twice under federal reorganizations in 1939 and 1953, when it became part of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare under President Dwight Eisenhower. This executive order will likely result in a similar reorganization of administrative offices but not necessarily large changes in funds spent or policy, which are set in law.

Much of ED’s funding to schools is to make up for disparities in local education funding. It distributes more than $22 billion in financial assistance to school districts where 40% or more students live in low-income families under Title I of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). It also provides funds for teacher and administrator training and to support English learners, per ESEA. The bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015 expanded ESEA to additional areas like charter schools, education technology, and afterschool programs. According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS) guide to the legislation, school districts actually have considerable flexibility in directing federal dollars to improve student academic achievement. There’s no plan to reduce this funding that we’re aware of, but some states are separately asking for it to be given instead without strings attached that ensure it is used for the students currently intended by the law.

ED also administers the federal student loan program for college education. The federal government first started making direct loans to students in 1958 under the National Defense Education Act, which Congress passed to jumpstart investment in higher education after the launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union, and the Higher Education Act of 1965. Today $1.6 trillion in loans are outstanding. The EO does not say what will happen to the federal student loan programs administratively. But at the signing event, Trump said student loan repayment administration will be shifted to the Small Business Administration. That agency already has announced the elimination of 2,700 jobs out of a total workforce of 6,500.

Trump also announced that administration of special education and rehabilitative services will shift to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) with its support for students "fully preserved" after the Administration already laid off 243 employees from ED’s Office of Civil Rights and closed the department’s research arm that monitors state-level special education progress. These services were created by the 1990 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which requires equal access to public education for 7.5 million students. The law expanded Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, which guaranteed equal access and nondiscrimination for disabled individuals in education programs receiving federal funds. Under IDEA, ED issues grants to states to spend on students’ individual education plans, monitors state-level performance, and enforces civil rights complaints by disabled students. (HHS currently enforces employment discrimination in the health care sector under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.)

But the law says otherwise about moving it. At 20 U.S.C. §1402, IDEA reads:

(a) There shall be, within the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services in the Department of Education, an Office of Special Education Programs, which shall be the principal agency [for] activities concerning the education of children with disabilities.

(b) The Office established under subsection (a) shall be headed by a Director who shall be selected by the Secretary [of Education] and shall report directly to the Assistant Secretary [of Education] for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services.

Congress would need to pass a bill to change this law before these programs can be moved, it seems. And similar language exists for many other ED programs.

Separately, half of ED’s staff have been laid off, raising questions of how ED will continue to carry out its programs still set in law.

Four court cases have challenged the closure and layoffs (no rulings have been made yet), and several other cases are challenging the termination of specific grants and programs and access to ED’s databases, according to Just Security’s litigation tracker.

“Diversity, equity, and inclusion” and “gender ideology”

The EO to close ED also directs the Secretary of Education to look for any “obscured” illegal disrimination in funds used for “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or to promote “gender ideology.” The EO doesn’t change what counts as “illegal discrimination.” (This is a much bigger topic than we can address here, so we’ll leave it at that.)

FEMA

Trump’s intent to also abolish FEMA was announced on a visit to hurricane-ravaged North Carolina in January, when he stated the agency had wasted money over the last four years and that the burden of relief funding should shift back to the states.

On March 18, the White House issued EO 14239, calling for state and local governments and private individuals to play a greater role in disaster preparedness and for the streamlining of preparedness operations.

It makes no direct mention of FEMA. Rather, the EO calls for the review of several new federal disaster-related policies over the next year. These reviews, along with the findings of the Council to Assess the Federal Emergency Management Agency that was created by executive order on January 24 of this year, will form recommendations to Trump for “recissions [cuts to spending directed by law], and replacements necessary to reformulate the process and metrics for Federal responsibility” and move federal disaster planning from its current all-hazards approach.